WLS 6.0 config and deployment

Question

Hi,
Just converted our app from 5.1 to 6.0. Not too many problems once we
figured out the class loader situation. I have some questions regarding
configuration and deployment which are not clear to me after reading the
documentation.
I find I have to modify config.xml manually quite often to fix problems
which the console creates. It is not at all uncommon for me to change a
property via the console and then have to undo the change manually to
get the server to properly start up again. While I accept that this is
probably due to a mistake I am making, I am very surprised that this
system is so fragile. Now for my questions...
1) Sometimes the console will add a new application to my config.xml
with a
"-1 " extension. Why is this? It doesn't create problems in and of
itself but does seem to accompany other problems which the console
creates in this file.
2) I intend to deploy an ear for production purposes, but as the
documentation points out this is inconvenient for development. I need
the ability to modify single jsp files without redploying all of them.
This worked great in 5.1. I am unable to do this in 6.0. As it stands
now, my jsp files are only redeployed on startup and unfortunately seem
to be redeployed every time we start regardless of whether chnages were
made to them. This makes development much slower. The REPLOY file
business discussed in the docs doesn't seem to have any effect. I
currently am deploying the jsp files and associated classes in "expanded
directory format" under the .config/domain/applications/applicationName
directory. I am deploying some EJBS in a pre-compiled jar file and
placing this jar file in the system classpath so the jsps can access the
shared classes. (I know this prevents hot deployment but I seem to have
no choice since the EJBs interfaces do not reference all shared classes
and therefore do not export them to their parent.) This jar file resides
in the ./config/domain/applications directory. Any ideas as to why I can
not get my jsp files to hot deploy one at a time.
All in all, 6.0 is a great release but development time has increased
dramatically. Hot deployment is not going to work for us because
unfortuneately many of our classes are required by our startup classes
and therefore must be placed in the system classpath.
Thanks,
Steve

Answer 1

Basically, hot deployment of JSPs isn't supported for dynamically deployed
webapps, that is, those int the applications directory.
Gary
Steve Snodgrass <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
Follow up...
I have been able to get individual jsp files to hot deploy if they are
located in the DefaultWebApp_myserver directory instead of my applications
directory. It is possible to achieve this behavior in other directoriestoo
if they are configured correctly right? I mean, there is nothing special
about DefaultWebApp_myserver that would allow it to do something thatother
directories can not?
Steve
Steve Snodgrass wrote:
Hi,
Just converted our app from 5.1 to 6.0. Not too many problems once we
figured out the class loader situation. I have some questions regarding
configuration and deployment which are not clear to me after reading the
documentation.
I find I have to modify config.xml manually quite often to fix problems
which the console creates. It is not at all uncommon for me to change a
property via the console and then have to undo the change manually to
get the server to properly start up again. While I accept that this is
probably due to a mistake I am making, I am very surprised that this
system is so fragile. Now for my questions...
1) Sometimes the console will add a new application to my config.xml
with a
"-1 " extension. Why is this? It doesn't create problems in and of
itself but does seem to accompany other problems which the console
creates in this file.
2) I intend to deploy an ear for production purposes, but as the
documentation points out this is inconvenient for development. I need
the ability to modify single jsp files without redploying all of them.
This worked great in 5.1. I am unable to do this in 6.0. As it stands
now, my jsp files are only redeployed on startup and unfortunately seem
to be redeployed every time we start regardless of whether chnages were
made to them. This makes development much slower. The REPLOY file
business discussed in the docs doesn't seem to have any effect. I
currently am deploying the jsp files and associated classes in "expanded
directory format" under the .config/domain/applications/applicationName
directory. I am deploying some EJBS in a pre-compiled jar file and
placing this jar file in the system classpath so the jsps can access the
shared classes. (I know this prevents hot deployment but I seem to have
no choice since the EJBs interfaces do not reference all shared classes
and therefore do not export them to their parent.) This jar file resides
in the ./config/domain/applications directory. Any ideas as to why I can
not get my jsp files to hot deploy one at a time.
All in all, 6.0 is a great release but development time has increased
dramatically. Hot deployment is not going to work for us because
unfortuneately many of our classes are required by our startup classes
and therefore must be placed in the system classpath.
Thanks,
Steve